Throne of Magical Arcana

Hearing Lucien’s words, the gentlemen managed to refrain themselves, but the two ladies present could not hold back their giggles — Mr. Evans had to pay for his roaring!

Levski’s paper introduced a brand new geometry system, and it included lots of propositions. The length of the paper way exceeded that of an ordinary paper and was almost equivalent to a book. Although Lucien skipped many parts when lecturing, his throat still hurt, despite of the fact that he was also a knight.

Lucien’s answer amused the rest of the board members, and also more or less healed their mind after the intense roaring. During Lucien’s speech, they were so shocked by Lucien’s imposing manner and violent roaring that they subconsciously assumed that he was another Lord of Storm, who would never be bothered by too much roaring. Now the problem had been solved, they started to feel that Lucien was in fact quite easy-going.

“You need some potions?” Milina chuckled.

Lucien shook his head, and his voice was still a bit dry. “I’m okay. I’m a level-two knight, so I should be able to recover after one or two hours.”

Neeshka sighed and then said, “Mr. Evans, you just read Levski’s paper for the first time a few days ago, right? It’s unbelievable that you managed to find two ways to prove it in such a short time. The second method is particularly concise and beautiful, which has perfectly proved the compatibility between Tower Geometry and Levski Geometry. Facing it, we can no longer let arrogance and prejudice blind us anymore. You’re such an incredible genius in the field of Maths.”

“Um… In fact, it’s the studies of differential geometry and sphere surface in recent years, the studies that have been done by you all, that provided me with a solid foundation and inspirations. Without your studies, even though I was able to see Mr. Levski’s paper from a relatively objective perspective, I wouldn’t have been able to finish the reasonings in such a short period of time,” said Lucien.

He was being rather humble. After all, he could not tell them that the credits should all go to the great mathematicians on the Earth.

Lucien expected that, if he had not stood out to support Levski’s theory, the great value of Levski’s paper would be realized around four to five years after the death of Levski, if Levski could not advance to middle-rank. What Lucien did just now was returning to Levski his rightful honor and award when he was still alive, not until after he died in misery.

Lucien’s sincere attitude completely resolved the board members’ uncomfortable feelings. They apologized again, in the most earnest manner.

Neeshka looked at Levski, who had gradually calmed down, and said, “It’s such a pity that so far the new geometry systems put forward by Levski and Evans cannot be applied to our daily arcana study, nor could they be accepted by Arcana. This pity is often shared by we arcanists in math. I guess we can only publish them on the journal Astrology funded by Tower.”

This was a world where a theory would only be valued when it could be applied to reality. The reason why calculus was called the tool that had changed the entire era was that it could help a sorcerer accomplish the complex calculations required for completing a magic model, thus simplifying the process and lowering the requirement for the level of spiritual power. In the past, a sorcerer would need ten to twenty years to become a middle-rank, but now it could be done within five to six. Some geniuses even made it in one year! Of course, when exploring the truth of the world, calculus was an indispensable tool as well.

Also, the reason why complex variables functions had been the most heated study focus in recent decades was that they could be used to describe and calculate the force field of spiritual power. All the valuable papers that focused on complex variables functions were very likely to be published on Arcana and Magic.

So Levski’s and Lucien’s findings, despite that their mathematic models had already been established, might be gems that only thrilled the mathematicians in their own world. It is very unlikely that these papers would be published on Arcana.

Lucien said in a half-joking manner, “Perhaps the other side of the world fits perfectly into the new systems. When we find it out, maybe Arcana will do us a special supplement to acknowledge the significance of our findings.”

Although Lucien could use his privilege as the member of the Review Board to publish the paper on Arcana, it would not help Levski much. So Lucien preferred to publish his and Levski’s papers on Astrology together. He believed that this month’s issue of Astrology would be remembered by all the arcanists in the future because of their papers.

“Hopefully.” The rest of the board members did not really think that it was going to happen and simply offered their sincere wish. Even with President Douglas’ theories that the world is a sphere, and with the important role that Evans Geometry played in the study of spheres, it was still quite hopeless for the paper to be published on Arcana. Since the coverage of most of the magic spells was limited, Tower Geometry and the properties of curves were equivalent tools for the sorcerers. There was thus no need to get too complicated.

Except for Ross who was a firm representative of the Congress, the rest of the board members present were all upper echelons of Tower, so they could decide what to be published on Astrology. After a brief discussion, Milina said to Levski and Evans, “the month just started, and this month’s Astrology just came out. But to acknowledge the great contribution from you two, and to let most of the arcanists access your papers as soon as possible, we want to put your papers on a supplement for this month. What do you think?”

In many arcanists’ mind, a supplement was not formal enough.

Levski was totally fine with it. His paper had passed the review and won such high recognition. Because of it, he would become a level-four arcanist and was now a candidate of Arcana Scepter. To him, ensuring that his paper was available to the public earlier was more important, as his dream was to make his geometry system be accepted by as many arcanists as possible.

But Levski did not respond immediately. Instead, he looked at Lucien and waited for his answer. After all, it was Lucien who brought him all these.

Hearing that, Lucien had a new idea. When Lucien was thinking on it, Milina took his silence as reluctance, so she hurriedly added, “Since the two papers are quite long, if we put them together and publish them on the next month’s issue, it’s gonna be too thick to make room for other papers. So either for this month or next, we still have to make a supplement. It’s the first time that we only publish two papers on one issue since the era of calculus. So it’s actually an honor…”

Lucien waved his hand and smiled. “It’s not a problem to me. I was thinking of something else… I mean, since now we’re planning on adding a supplement, why don’t we establish a new journal that affiliates with Astrology for publishing math papers exclusively? While Astrology can focus on publishing papers in the astrological field and avoid being criticized that math papers are taking up space for papers focused on blessing, prophecy, and curses, arcanists who are devoted to math study can also find their own platform for discussion. I think this is gonna be a great encouragement to them.”

Producing a new journal was not an easy job. Also, the math papers that they could collect at this stage might not be enough for establishing a new one. But for an affiliated journal, many worries could be saved.

“Affiliated journal… We don’t have it before. How do we determine its Influence Factor?” asked Neeshka. He was an authority in math, thus, having a journal exclusively for math was a great temptation to him.

Lucien first briefly introduced the benefits of having an affiliated journal, and then said, “As an affiliated journal, its Influence Factor should also follow Astrology but at one level lower: Astrology’s Influence Factor is 2.5, then we should give 2.0 to it.”

“We’re very interested in the proposal, and we’ll apply to the Board tomorrow,” said Milina after a short discussion with the leaders from Tower, and then she turned to Lucien and Levski. “… So, if you two publish your papers on the new journal, the Influence Factor is 0.5 lower, and the arcana points awarded for citation will be less…”

Lucien smiled gently. “I’m fine with it. It is my honor publishing the paper on the first issue of a journal.”

Levski also nodded. “Me too. So far I can’t see a wide application of my new geometry system, so there shouldn’t be a big difference in the citation credits. It’s also a great honor for me.”

“Thanks a lot. The two papers will be the start of the new journal,” Milina smiled. “… By the way, Mr. Levski, I wonder if you’re willing to take the role of the chief editor of the journal. You definitely fit this position, as a genius in math.”

Levski thought about it carefully and nodded. “Thank you, I’d love to. I’ll try my best.” He believed that compared to other jobs, this job would allow him to spend more time on studying math and arcana.

Milina then turned to Lucien. “Since you are a member of the Arcana Review Board, I’m afraid you can’t be the chief editor. However, in order to show our appreciation of your great contribution, we’d like to invite you to be our Honorary Chief Editor, can we? You can publish all your math papers on this journal.”

“No problem.” Lucien laughed. Could this count as Tower’s pay to him?

Neeshka added, “Mr. Evans, can we put the short speech that you just delivered on the front page of the journal? We’d like to have your words to be the inscription as well.”

“My great honor,” responded Lucien briefly. His throat still hurt.

Finally, Milina realized that the new journal was still waiting for a name, so she said, “Mr. Evans, since you made the proposal, why don’t you name it?”

The board members all nodded.

Lucien thought for a while and said softly,

“Math is the most wonderful and essential language in nature, and it shows the rules that all fields and realms shall follow…

“So, let’s name it — Nature!”